June 30, 2007

Sadly Mistaken

Mistakes happen. If a first step is to admit the mistake, a next step must be to make changes so that the error isn't repeated. Making mistakes and learning from them can be empowering. In ancient times, it was thought that fixing one's mistakes cultivated virtue.

From the Even Bookmarks Have Expiry Dates file:
Bessie Ellison Elementary School in Missouri distributed HIV/AIDS - awareness bookmarks to the grade 6 class. A student dialed the number printed on the bookmark and it connected to a hardcore sex hot-line.
The toll-free number was once owned by Teens Teaching AIDS Prevention, part of the Kansas City-based nonprofit Good Samaritan Project. However, the AIDS hot line has not been functional since last year and a sex hot line has since taken over the number.


From the Always Check The Source of the Fax file:
Officials in Kentucky mistakenly released a prisoner from a facility after receiving a phony fax that ordered him freed, and it took them nearly two weeks to realize it.
The fax contained grammatical errors, was not typed on letterhead and was sent from a local grocery store. The fax falsely claimed that the Kentucky Supreme Court "demanded" Timothy Rouse be released.
Rouse, 19, is charged with beating an elderly man and was at the Kentucky Correctional & Psychiatric Center in La Grange for a mental evaluation. He was released after officials received the fake court order.


From the Good Fences Make Good Neighbors file:
A 2 1/2-kilometre barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border was designed to keep cars from illegally crossing into the United States. It was accidentally built on Mexican soil. The barrier was part of more than 24 kilometres of border fence built in 2000.


Here's hoping a teacher checks the phone number on bookmarks next time; prison officials verify release orders every time; and border officials will measure twice.
(Click to enlarge)


"If you know that you made a mistake and you don't correct it, that's truly a mistake." (Confucius)


Tags:


June 28, 2007

Very Random. Mother Approved.

Online Dating
Use of hurt(2); breast(1)

Mingle2 - Online Dating





Dammit! If I swear a little more or reference some body parts then maybe I can get a PG Rating and draw a larger audience!

Too bad the rating is only available with a link to the dating site.
Note: No diligence performed on the dating site. The link to the site is part of the code to display the sticker. I can't get the Rating Sticker without providing the link.

MPA (Canada)



Disclaimer and Limitation of Liability:
Under no circumstances will Very Random, its authors, agents or other designated representative be liable to any person or business for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential, or other damages based on any use any other web site to which this site is linked, including, without limitation, any lost profits, business interruption, or loss of programs or information.

It is the responsibility of the individual reader to make any judgement as to the appropriateness of a particular link or site for his/her own needs. Very Random is not affiliated with any political party and promotes no particular political or religious ideology.

Random is a protected primary word species. This protection applies to Very Random , At Random and other derivative phrases, arbitrarily selected, that are not specified here.


Tipped to the site by H.

Tags: [Motion Picture Association] [Copyright Use]

June 26, 2007

Latest in Home Repair

From, The Times, June 26, 2007:

Haynes manuals, the bible of home car mechanics, are branching out to take on a particularly tricky and temperamental model – the teenager.

The publishing company, which specialises in step-by-step guides to vehicle repair, has swapped horse power for hormones in an attempt to broaden its market now that cars are all but DIY-proof. Read the rest of the story...


At amazon.com, a search under the topic of 'parenting' results in more than 82,000 titles. I guess it wouldn't hurt to have one more!

When you need a firing order, turn to Haynes Manuals. When you need torque specs, Haynes will provide it. Ditto for wiring diagrams and removing the bezzel from around the gear shifter.

But parenting? I'd just sum it up this way: Intermittent problem, may lead to short fuse, no further explanation available.

Silent Treatment

Recently, I hooked up with Yahoo!®'s online radio service, LAUNCHcast. Michelle found Yahoo!® radio 2 years ago and claims that her personal station is the coolest around, but that's just because she hasn't heard mine.

It's not just an online radio station, it's a personalized and customized station.

The listener suggests some artists whose music he likes. LAUNCHcast starts with that and then suggests music by similar artists to add to the station. The listener rates the new music, from Don't Play it Again through to Can't Get Enough, and more music suggestions follow. The more ratings you provide, the sharper the tuning of the playlist. What you end up with is continuous streaming of music that you like.

Today, in protest of changing royalty rates, online radio stations are off the air. According to the Savenetradio Coalition "the future of Internet radio is in immediate danger."

The Copyright Royalty Board decided to increase the royalty fees paid by radio webcasters between 300 and 1200 per cent and make the increases retroactive to January 2006. (MSN Music, June 2007)

Web radio offers promotion to the artists, the same as land-radio. Online listeners are more loyal to their artists and the personalization feature of web radio generates tight market targets. Why wouldn't you want that?

In the U.S., terrestrial radio doesn't currently pay the artist for a spin. Webcasters have been paying 7/100ths in digital performance royalties for their spins. We want that.
I absolutely believe that artists deserve to be paid for their work. That's why I pay for music instead of downloading it from a P2P site. Webcasters are paying royalties that land radio is not. It's pretty unclear to me the justification of an increase of 300%- 1200%.

Today, I'm craving radio.

"Do you believe in Rock and Roll?
Can music save your mortal soul?"
- Don McLean, American Pie (1971)



Read RAIN for a better explanation of the changes and their impact on webcasting.



June 25, 2007

Fluky Tidbits

 border-style:none; Christopher Buckley's
Latest Lampoon

Blogger Cassandra Devine introduces Voluntary Transitioning as the solution to the U.S. Social Security crisis as Baby-Boomers retire.

Buckley's satire is based on this:
In 1950, 16 workers' contributions to Social Security in the U.S. funded one retiree.
In 2032, it is projected that only 2 workers will fund a Social Security beneficiary. (MacLean's June 18, 2007)

Cassandra's suggestion includes incentives to Boomers who volunteer to die at retirement age. It's ridiculous (isn't it?) to offer euthanasia to a generation in the name of fiscal economics...Watch what happens to Generational Divide after her blog posts.

Scared of the Social Security side of the novel? Then, read Boomsday (Twelve, Hatchette Book Group, 2007) for its secondary characters - the Congressman with Presidential ambitions, the sleazy Chief-of-Staff, the out-spoken Pro-Lifer, the back-room politics...and some of the best lines are given to The President.

Tags:



It's chilee in Chile

Anyone else find it odd that 47% of traffic to this site originates in the U.S., compared to just 34% from Canada?

The point of this pie-chart is just to point out the 2% of readers from Chile!





Plus, P. J. O'Rourke

An explanation of Adam Smith's thrilling 3-volumes on the mercantile system and economics...part of O'Rourke's "Books That Shook The World Series".

Even O'Rourke's sarcasm can't dismiss the relevance of Smith's economic theories..more than 200 years after he published them. Let's just say that O'Rourke's interpretation is plenty different than my Econ profs at university!

You just gotta admire that someone read the original 900 pages and offered up such an amusing summary!


Tags:

June 21, 2007

What's That Again?

There's a free service from Google™ that provides information about keyword searches conducted where the user clicks through to this site. Two things I've learned about online searches, is that Google™ gets asked some very odd questions, and people follow the results links at random.

Today, I was notified that the following phrase brought a visit:
Do Italians wear Espadrilles?

Of course Italians wear Espadrilles!

My Mom wears Espadrilles.
My Mom's Italian.
Therefore, Italians wear Espadrilles.

As far as I know, there are no restrictions based on culture or ethnicity on wearing Espadrilles...I guess you probably shouldn't wear white ones after Labor Day. border-style:none;

June 17, 2007

Word Processor

Words. I love them. Always have. It's not that I used to read the dictionary, but I am fascinated by words. We played word games in the car; our parents encouraged us to read and demonstrated an appreciation of language that we picked up.
Sometimes,
from time to time,
now and then,
occasionally,
at times I wish I'd never
been given this thesaurus.


When I was young, we used to drive by a Realtor's sign with a word on it that was new and fresh. It was always exciting to discover a mint morpheme.
I wanted to know the word, use the word, be the word. Each time we passed the sign, I would silently work on the word. I wanted to surprise Mom by using it.

One day, we came around the curve and the rotating sign was facing us with the word. Sure that I had mastered it, I announced proudly, "We Are Yoo-ni-kyoo!"
"We are what?" Mom asked.

The sign was behind us now, but I repeated, "We are yoo-ni-kyoo." I explained about the sign at the office on the corner.

"Oh, I know that sign," Mom said. "It's yoo-neek. We are unique." She went on to explain it's meaning to me. For days, I strutted around showing off my new word. The importance of it was completely lost upon my 6-year old friends.

The point of this story is not to disclose OCD (again!) ... I got a tip to the site How Will You Be Defined in the Dictionary?

With very little else to do in these post-surgery days, I visited the site. I just knew that it would define me as a caring, honorable person of high intelligence and integrity. (OK, that high intelligence part of me recognizes that a java script random field generator is responsible for the answers, but a person can dream, can't they?)

Here's the result:

As Chris - [adjective]: Benevolent to a fault

As Christine - [noun]: A person of questionable sanity who starts their own cult

My friends call me Chris...benevolent, yes, but to a fault?

June 15, 2007

For Your Information

I'm just getting around to sorting through all the paperwork I received in Cleveland.

Tucked in with the pages on Nutrition Guidelines to Improve Wound Healing and Using an Incentive Spirometer, is information about the gastric stimulator itself.

Among the info sheets, I received the Installation and Technical Manual as well as the Patient Reference Manual for the Enterra Gastric Stimulator that was implanted.


click image to enlarge

The technology of the gastric stimulator originated in The Netherlands. Since the package includes a hex wrench, I'm guessing the chief engineer was from Sweden!

At least it's got a 1-year warranty against defects!




June 13, 2007

Seriously, Folks...

I know that regular readers are not used to posts without sarcasm or irony or a little poke of fun. I have to get serious for a moment.

In our world, with its increasingly self-absorbed society, it might be easy to lose faith in humanity. If you submit to it, another cynic evolves. Each of us has probably witnessed at least 10 acts of selfishness in the past 24 hours. We won't recount them; it's not productive.

The prevalence of insolence makes me value considerate kindness even more. It is humbling to receive.

I have been the recipient of selfless generosity - from family, relatives, friends and friends-of-friends. There are truly no words great enough to express my gratitude for your help in getting me the treatment that I need. Without your support, encouragement, assistance and the occasional respite, this new lease on life would not have come my way.

From what you may term small deeds (your word, not mine) to large bestowals, each made a valued contribution to get me to this point of progress. I am grateful and want you to know that we appreciate it all.

Over the past 12 months, the stamina of our family has been tested many times...repeatedly...at length...ad nauseam...and each time our strength has proven greater than the challenge. We really will do anything for each other.

And we know Sincere and Great people.

Thank you!

Please pass this thank you post on to those who may not read this blog regularly.



Below the line:

My parents took me to Cleveland and all I got was life-saving surgery.

Thank you for being our family.

Michelle's gonna cry.

Summers ahead 3-0.


We now return to our regular programming.

June 11, 2007

Survey Says...

Finding it hard to provide a clever post just now.
Here's an update to tide you over a day or two.

Gloria has less than a month to get the gazebo painted!

[Original Post]

Poll Results
Is it Acceptable to Replace Chris's Vote Completely?
Yes-there is a consequence18%
No-we all make mistakes24%
It's Gloria's turn to paint the Gazebo59%


Please don't forget about this:

Wish Counter
739 wishes were made
6147 wishes were sponsored
Gifter.org




How To Do Anything

June 02, 2007

In Other Anthropology News

Headline from LiveScience and MSNBC:



Quick history lesson:
Pompeii was destroyed by a violent eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. It was accidentally re-discovered in 1748. Pompeii is one of the richest anthropological sites because it was destroyed so quickly. Scientists are focusing on the relics in one neighborhood to better understand day-to-day living in the 1st century.

Back to the story -

Archaeologist Penelope Allison (University of Leicester) describes some of her team's findings:


There was an absence of formal dishware sets but an abundance of small
grilling vessels (like barbecues) found in the residences studied, indicating
that people were eating-and-running on the go.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Everything old is new again.

         

Stumbling on Melons *

Dug up from The Canadian Press (June 1, 2007) :

Archaeologists in Japan unearthed the world's oldest melon. It was intact, the flesh still attached to the rind, after 2100 years. The Research Institute for Humanity & Nature in Kyoto used radiocarbon testing to determine the age of the fruit.

Researcher Shuji Yamazaki explains: the melon might have been so well-preserved because it was in a vacuum-packed state in a wet layer below the ground, an environment hostile to micro-organisms that might otherwise have broken down the remains.

The ancient Shimongo settlement was built near water and protected by moats, circa 300 BC to A.D. 300.

So, it looks like even 2100 years ago, people liked to have melon after they swim...Wayne didn't start that!


All I can say is that my life is pretty plain....

* Andrew Marvell (1621-1678): "The nectarine, and curious peach, / Into my hands themselves do reach; / Stumbling on melons, as I pass, / Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass."